As most writers do, I pay attention to where my name and writing show up on the Internet. From time to time, I will stumble upon Evangelical blogs and forums having “discussions” about my story or something I have written. Today, I saw a new search engine, mojeek.com, in this site’s server logs. I typed my name in a search field, hit enter, and up came the results for “Bruce Gerencser.” I saw the usual results, but sprinkled here and there were sites I had not seen before. One such result was for Whiter than Snow Appliances, owned by a Fundamentalist Baptist named Tom Frederick.
What my search revealed is that Frederick has a WARNING on his business’ website about me. Here’s the WARNING he placed on the front page of his business site (all spelling and grammar in the original):
If you have found WTSA by being tagged to a Bruce Gerencser’s atheist website then realize that he is on a mission to troll and dox us because I confronted him for his blasphemies. We advised you not to waste your time by visiting his site lest his atheism and vulgar writings, laced with curse words, get into your minds, start appealling to your logic then start corrupting your soul.
Read II Corin. 10:5 – KJV…
Shalom, WTSA
Evidently, my words are powerful. If Christians listen to them, they will get into their minds, appeal to their logic, and corrupt their souls. OMG, I must be Satan himself! 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A Fundamentalist Christian woman by the name of Lucinda Palestrant sent me the above email several years ago. Palestrant came to this site via a Google search for Darwin Fish. In 2015, I wrote a post about Fish titled, Darwin Fish, A True Prophet of God. I described Fish this way: Darwin Fish, the truest Christian on earth, a Fundamentalist on steroids. Evidently, Palestrant is also a member of that elite, super-sanctified, elect remnant of Christians who supposedly will someday be rewarded by Jesus for their mind-numbing. devotion to what they believe are the TRUE teachings of the Bible. Heaven awaits them, their reward for stoutly standing for true Christianity®, while the illimitable sea of humans, past, present, and future, will be cast into outer darkness, facing eternal torture and suffering because they were born in the wrong country, raised in the wrong home, or had the wrong beliefs. (See Why Most Americans are Christian.) And for people such as myself, those who have full knowledge of the truth, yet reject it and lead others astray? Hell, fueled by God’s hatred of sin, awaits.
Palestrant warns me: The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. (Psalm 94:11) Evidently, this verse is supposed to scare me. God knows what you are thinking, Bruce, Palestrant admonishes, thinking that I will quake in my Sketchers over the very thought of her God reading my mind. Here’s what Palestrant fails to understand: I think her God is a myth, no more able to read my mind than Leonard Nimoy — of Star Trek fame — is able to do a mind-meld and read my innermost thoughts.
As a writer, public figure, and a well-known atheist, I understand that my written and spoken words matter. Virtually every day that I am physically able, I send out my words to be read by thousands of people. For almost six years now, my editor, Carolyn, has edited my writing, helping me to hone my writing skills, saving me from countless careless, imprecise errors. My goal has always been the same: to passionately and effectively tell my story in such a way that it infuriates Fundamentalists, helps those who have been harmed by Fundamentalism, and provides a voice for those who have been psychologically savaged by Evangelical Christianity. (See Are Evangelicals Fundamentalists? )I consider it a great honor to have the Lucinda Palestrants of the world tell me that I am leading people to Hell. Since the Biblical Hell is about as real as Donald Trump’s Christianity, the only “hell” I am leading readers to is the one filled with reason and freedom. It is in this “hell” people find that they are free to follow the path of life wherever it leads. No longer shackled by Fundamentalist dogma, former Evangelicals are free to embrace the wild, wonderful (and dangerous) world on their own terms. I can only hope that Lucinda Palestrant will someday experience the wonders of a mind liberated from the bondage of the Christian Bible.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Brother can i ask you why you are so angry…brother you are in my prayers and know that the Lord our God loves you with an everlasting love..
Here is my response:
First, you don’t know me.
Second, I am not your brother.
Third, you can’t possibly know if I am angry. You don’t have some sort of special gift to sense emotions through a computer screen.
Fourth, I am not angry. I am sitting here contemplating the fact that my youngest daughter will be married tomorrow. I am performing the ceremony. I am happy, even though I am in excruciating physical pain and I have to respond to someone like you.
Fifth, I have no interest in your God. I have no need of your God and his mythical love. I am a satisfied, happy atheist.
Sixth, by all means pray. Since I think your God is a mythical being, your prayers cannot help or hurt. If it makes you feel better to pray, go ahead.
Seventh, is it your normal behavior to troll Facebook pages offering psychological assessments and un-requested prayer? If so, you might want to try a different approach. Over the past eight years, hundreds of people have tried the same approach and failed miserably. What makes you think that YOUR words will have any effect?
In the the name of reason, Bruce
Troll’s response, with my snarky responses in [brackets]:
Well first of all congratulation on your daughter marriage, Second I just spence [sense] you were [angry]Â and I am sorry [No you are not.] I was wrong. I do not troll face book [Yes you do.] I am not why your even come up [It must have been God.]..as for praying I alway will because that is what God has called me to do [Did God tell you to pray for Bruce Gerencser at 345 E Main St in Ney, Ohio on April 1, 2016 at 10:25 PM EST?] as for failing you I haven’t failed you you have fail my God [How could I fail someone who doesn’t exist?] …my words will have no effect but God word do effect people lives. [I know all of God’s words. Let’s play Bible trivia.] God bless you [How can he? I am a God-hating atheist who, with full knowledge of what he is doing, spits in the face of your God. According to the Bible I am God’s enemy, a reprobate.]Â and have a wonderful day tomorrow with your daughter and family…I have five daughters and three son and only one is married,it hard to see our children grow up and leave the nest..blessing friend.. [Thanks for the let me play nice ending to what was a really bad idea. Lesson learned? Don’t email atheists, They bite.]
I have zero tolerance for Evangelicals who do these kinds of things. I am polite, but direct. Point made. End of discussion. What’s for dinner? Maybe a roll in the hay later with my hot, angry, godless wife.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I have battled depression most of my adult life. For many years, I denied that IÂ was depressed, attributing my melancholy to God testing or trying me, Satan tempting me, or God punishing me for this or that sin. My religious beliefs told me that depression was a sign of a backslidden, sinful, or rebellious life. After all, the Bible says in Isaiah 26:3:
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee [God]: because he trusteth in thee.
Psalm 43:5 states:
Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
The Apostle Paul — a First Century Tony Robbins and Wayne Dyer — had this to say:
Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)
Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. (Philippians 4:11)
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
And if these verses weren’t enough, there was always the “look at all Jesus suffered on the cross just so you could be saved and go to Heaven someday!” Compared to what Jesus went through, my depression was nothing. (Please see I Wish Christians Would be Honest About Jesus’ Three Day Weekend.)
I had numerous colleagues in the ministry, but talking to them about my depression was not an option. Talking to them meant admitting I was weak or “sinful.” I never considered seeking out the help of a psychiatrist or a psychologist. How could I? I had preached numerous sermons on the aforementioned verses, and on my bookshelf sat books such as Psycho-Heresy: The Psychological Seduction of Christianity by Wayne and Deidre Bobgan and PsychoBabble: The Failure of Modern Psychology–and the Biblical Alternative by Richard Ganz. No, I concluded that I was the problem.
I now know that having a Type A personality and being a perfectionist and a workaholic didn’t help matters. No matter how hard I worked, I never measured up. The church growth craze of the 1970s and 1980s only exacerbated my depression. The ministry was reduced to a set of numbers: attendance, souls saved, and offerings. Push, push, push. Go, go, go. Do, do, do. Much like a crack addict seeking his latest fix, I focused on attendance increases and souls brought to Jesus to push my depression into the background. And as sure as the sun comes up in the morning, declining attendance and a lack of “God working in our midst” forced my depression to the forefront. I spent countless nights alone in the darkness of the church building praying to God, pleading that he would fill me with the Holy Spirit and use me to bring in a large harvest of souls. In the end, no matter how hard I worked or how much I sacrificed— money, family, and health — it was never enough. Success was a temporary elixir that soothed my depression, but its effect soon wore off and I retreated for the thousandth time into the deep, dark recesses of my mind.
In 2005, two years after I left the ministry, I told Polly I needed professional psychological help. It took me another three years before I was willing to pick up the phone and make an appointment. At first, finding a “Christian” counselor was important to me. Once I found one, I then had second thoughts about people seeing me entering his office or noticing my car in the parking lot. I live in an area where almost everyone knows me — both as a pastor and now as an atheist. It wasn’t until I deconverted that I began calling counselors, hoping to find a non-religious, secular counselor. Fortunately, I found just the right person to help peel away the layers of my life, allowing me to finally embrace my depression and find ways of handling what Dexter the serial killer called his “dark passenger.” Late last year, I started seeing a new counselor, a woman. My first counselor and I had become friends (a common problem in long-term counseling relationships), so I knew it was time for me to see someone new.
Readers who have been with me since the days of blogs named Bruce Droppings, NW Ohio Skeptic, The Way Forward, and Fallen From Grace have helplessly watched me repeatedly psychologically crash and burn, only to rise again out of the ashes like a phoenix. Surprisingly, the current iteration of my blog has been active for seven years. I attribute the length of my success to the help I’ve received from my counselors. That said, I can’t guarantee that I might not, in the future, crash. I’ve told myself that if that happens again, I’m done blogging.
Some days, I feel like I have tied a knot on the rope of my life and I am desperately trying to hold on. There are days when I feel my grip slipping, leaving me to wonder if I can make it through another day. I do what I can. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen. Health problems, especially chronic pain and bowel problems, continue to drive my depression and virtually every other aspect of my life. I can’t escape these things. All I know to do is endure.
As depressives will tell you, small problems often pile up for them and turn into full-blown depressive episodes. I mean, suicide level, I can’t deal with this any longer episodes. My counselor is keenly aware of how quickly things can pile up for me. Starting with chronic illnesses, unrelenting pain, loss of mobility, and decreased cognitive function, my plate is quite full before I even get out of bed — that is, if I can get out of bed.
Recent events have filled my plate as I would on Thanksgiving Day. What’s one more helping of ham, turkey, and candied sweet potatoes, right? While I find it too painful to write about many of the things that have been added to my plate, I have talked to my counselor about how overwhelmed I am with life. She encourages me to focus on what is best for me, and not “fixing” the problems of others. I am not sure how well I can heed his advice, but I am trying.
I have written all this to say that I must continue to find ways to “lighten my load.” My health will never be as good as it is today, and someday I will likely be unable to leave my home. In the interest of improving the quality of what life I have left, I must identify the unnecessary things that are weighing me down and cast them aside. This is not easy for me to do. Giving in has never been my strong suit. I hate to let go of things (and people) who have been very much a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Over the past few months, I have made a concerted to downsize and simplify my life. I sold all my photography equipment. Boy, was this hard. Even worse, I am turning my office into a pantry and a storage room. Gone will be the metal desk I’ve owned for almost forty years — a M.A.S.H. era desk. Most of my 4,000+ plus sermons were crafted on my desk. Countless couples and church members sat across from me, telling me their woes. I used this desk every day for most of my adult life — until I couldn’t. Thanks to herniated discs in my back and neck, I can no longer use the desk. Saying goodbye to my dear friend brought tears, but I knew it was the right thing to do. My oldest son will soon move my desk to his home. I wonder if I should tell him what Mom and Dad did on that desk? 🙂
It goes without saying, that above everything I could ever do or own, I deeply love my wife, children, and grandchildren (and yes, my daughters-in-law and son-in-law too). As illness and pain whittle down my life, I am learning that what matters most is love and family. The praise of congregants and the approbation of fellow clergy are but distant memories. I would trade all of them for one day without pain. We silly humans so often focus on things that don’t matter. Age brings perspective, and what really matters — at least to me — fits on a small Post-it note. And even now, I continue to mark through things on my list. I suspect that when death claims me for its own, my list will contain a handful of names and the words “they loved me until the end.”
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Today, Lauren, an Evangelical woman from New York, left the following comment on the post titled How Evangelicalism Attempts to Supplant Family Relationships. Lauren read all of two posts on this site, the aforementioned article and the Comment Policy. My response to Lauren’s comment is indented and italicized.
Well…I’d “comment” but you are CENSORING comments…because silence always looks like “agreement”.
Lauren goes right for the jugular, accusing me of censoring comments. Evidently, if I don’t let Evangelicals run willy-nilly over the comment section I am censoring them.
It’s evident, at least to me, that either Lauren didn’t read the Comment Policy or she lacks basic reading comprehension skills.
I do not censor first-time comments. The Comment Policy states:
Evangelical commenters will be given one opportunity to say whatever they want. One, not two, three, or ten. Just one. Quote the Bible. Preach the sermon God has laid upon your heart. Put in a good word for Jesus. You have one opportunity to impress readers with your John Holmes-like Bible prowess.
Lauren could have put a good word in for Jesus or tried to evangelize me, but she decided, instead, to whine and complain about “censorship.” She used her one opportunity to preach the Good News to complain about the Comment Policy and attack my character. Good job, Lauren. I am sure God is proud of you.
You are a liar.
This is quite a claim by Lauren. What in the post she commented on is a lie? She provides no evidence for her claim, just a bald assertion meant to cause harm. Sorry, Lauren, I have been dealing with Assholes for Jesus® for fifteen years. You are a rank amateur compared to some of your fellow Christians.
And like it or not, I won’t pray FOR you…but I will talk to God ABOUT you.
This is a distinction without a difference. Maybe Lauren will let me know what the Bible God says about me. Better yet, why doesn’t God directly talk to me? He knows where I live. He even has my email address and text number. Why work through frail, mistaken middlemen such as Lauren?
Funny that you NEED to censor Scripture or evangelical comments…it’s like you think they might have some sort of power to them or you’d not be bothered by them. You actually give them much more validation by censoring them than by just ignoring them.
Lauren could have quoted as many Bible verses as she wished, but chose not to. That’s on her.
The rest of the relevant Comment Policy states:
The following types of comments will not be approved:
Preachy/sermonizing comment
Extensive Bible verse quoting comment
Evangelizing comment
I am praying for you comment
You are going to Hell comment
You never were saved comment
You never were a Christian comment
Any comment that is a personal attack
Any comment that is not on point with what the post is about
Any comment that denigrates abuse victims
Any comment that attacks LGBTQ people
As you can see, quoting Bible verses in comments is not banned, as long as the quotations are focused and reasonable. What I don’t want is a bunch of proof-texting or sermonizing. Remember, Lauren could have quoted the entire book of John in her first comment, but she chose not to. That’s all on her.
I don’t anticipate this comment will remain on your page.
Why? I approved it, as I do all first-time comments. It sounds like Lauren has a martyrs complex. The Evil Atheist Bruce Gerencser is keeping her from saying whatever she wants. This, of course, is not true.
My heart is broken for your brokenness and the deception your uncensored comments will cause.
Brokenness? Really? I’m quite whole, thank you very much — outside of a few loose screws and broken body. Once free from the shackles of Evangelicalism, I found freedom and wholeness.
No first-time comments are ever censored. NEVER! That said, commenting on this site is a privilege. The Comment Policy states:
The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser is not a democracy where anyone has a right to say whatever they want. This is my personal blog and I reserve the right to approve or not approve any comment. When a comment or a commenter is abusive towards the community of people who read this blog, I reserve the right to ban the commenter.
If you can be respectful, decent, and thoughtful, your comment will always be approved. Unfortunately, there are many people — Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christians in particular — who have a hard time playing well with others. They often use a passive-aggressive approach towards me and the non-Christian people who frequent this blog. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated and will result in a permanent ban.
This blog is also not a place for hardcore atheists to preach the gospel of atheism. While I am an atheist, many of the people who read this blog are not. Frank, honest, open, and passionate discussion about religion, Christianity, and Evangelicalism is encouraged and welcome. However, I do expect atheists not to attack, badger, or denigrate people who still believe in God. If you are respectful, decent, and thoughtful, you will be fine.
Lauren seems to think that I should allow people to say whatever they want in the comments. That’s not going to happen — ever. The privilege of commenting on this site (after a first comment) must be earned. Play by the rules, and you can comment at will. We have developed a wonderful community over the years. One reason for this is that I don’t let Evangelicals shit all over the place. This is a private blog, my blog, no different from my home or automobile. I choose who I do or don’t let into my home or drive my car. I suspect Lauren does the same.
Here’s what I will do, I will offer Lauren ONE opportunity to write a guest post. She is free to say whatever she wants. Show why I am a “liar,” Lauren. Reveal why I am such a “bad” man. Write about what your “friend” told you about Bruce Gerencser. Defend Christianity. Prove the existence of the Bible God. Defend the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Better yet, share your testimony. Just remember, readers will respond to what you write, as will I.
I will offer Lauren another deal. I will grant her the privilege to comment whenever and however she wants IF she arranges for me to speak at her church on a Sunday morning on the subject “Why I Am an Atheist.” Let’s see if Lauren is a woman of conviction. Surely, I should have the right to say whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and stopping me from doing so is “censorship,” right? Right? 🙂
I suspect my church’s size is far bigger attendance-wise than the church Lauren attends, so this would be a fair swap of platforms. 🙂 I have made this offer numerous times over the years. Not one Evangelical has taken me up on it. I wonder why?
BTW…I am a member of “The Family of God” and found your page looking for a logo…thanks for helping me find you so I can talk to my Friend about you.
Please let me know what your “Friend,” Hey-Zeus, has to say. He’s dead, you know. It will be quite a feat for you to get a response from a 2,000-year-old corpse.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Several days ago, I received two emails from a Baptist pastor named Stacey. What follows is my response to his emails. My response is indented and italicized. I appreciate Stacey’s polite, respectful tone — a rare experience for me with Evangelical preachers
Email One
I was raised in a Christian home and have been preaching for 18 years. I pastor a small congregation in Arkansas. I came across your blog about a year ago and it has intrigued me greatly.
Thank you for taking the time to actually read my writing. Far too often, Evangelicals read a post or two and then go into attack mode. Their goal is not to learn. I am viewed as their enemy, one unworthy of kindness, decency, and respect. I have received thousands of comments and emails from Evangelicals over the years. Few have been respectful and polite. Their goal seems to be to discredit me or deconstruct my life instead of genuinely trying to understand my story.
I can empathize with all of the things you went through as a Christian and especially as a pastor of a church. Sometimes church people can be downright ignorant, mean spirited and even cruel. I will not make excuses for these people or try to explain it away. People are people even when they become religious.
By far, the worst people have been Evangelical pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and professors. And then there’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB) They are in a class all their own –overwhelmingly nasty, arrogant, and violent.
I only want to ask how you explain the historical accounts of Jesus. I know you are well educated with not only the bible but other historical accounts of his life. I may have missed this explanation in some of your other blogs and I have read most of them. I am sure you know of Lee Strobel and his Book, The Case for Christ, if Jesus did exist in history, then what do you say about him? Was he just a good man? Was his death and supposed resurrection a hoax? Just curious what you believe or better yet think on it.
We have very little evidence for the existence of Jesus. I am not saying we have no evidence. The Bible certainly contains history, but the challenge is decoupling myth and exaggeration from history. I take a minimalist approach to Jesus. He lived and died in first-century Palestine. We have no evidence for the miraculous claims found in the Bible, including Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.
Non-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus is scant, especially when you carefully examine the sources. I am of the opinion that if Jesus was all that Christians say he was, there would be a lot more evidence for their claims than what we have. We have no first-hand accounts, including the gospels.
I am aware of all the “evidence” for Jesus, I just don’t find it persuasive; not enough for me to bow down and worship him or devote my life to serving him. Christianity requires “faith,” a faith I do not have.
If you have not read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books, I encourage you to do so. Ehrman is a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. I found his books helpful when trying to understand the history and nature of the Bible. I would be glad to recommend several book titles if you are interested in checking them out.
I read Strobel’s book years ago. As an Evangelical pastor, I found it persuasive. Now that I have all the evidence at my disposal, I find his book unpersuasive and “simple.”
Email Two
I sent an email asking what your thoughts were on the historical accounts of Jesus were. I have read what you think of the western Jesus, you hate him I know.
The post Stacey is referencing is titled, Why I Hate Jesus — a polemical article about the Jesus of Evangelical Christianity. It is the most widely read post on this site six years running.
I want to know what you think of the Jesus that history records. Was this historical Jesus just a really good hoax that fooled believers then and is still fooling believers today?
Jesus was a flesh and blood person who lived and died. The religion that came to life after his execution for crimes against the state was primarily shaped by the Apostle Paul. I would argue that Jesus’s Christianity is very different from Paul’s; that there are at least five plans of salvation taught in the Bible: blood sacrifice, obedience to the law found in the Old Testament, and Paul’s Jesus’, James’ and Peter’s plans of salvation found in the New Testament.
Christian’s are taught to harmonize the books/texts of the Bible; that there is some sort of grand story and theme running through the pages of the Bible. I encourage people to read the Bible vertically, taking each book and author(s) as stand alone texts. Doing this will present a very different picture from the one painted historically by Christians. Take Genesis 1-3. Evangelicals typically read Trinitarian theology into the text. Reading Genesis 1-3 as a stand-alone text reveals a very different picture — one with multiple deities.
I know you are thinking, how could it all be a myth? Consider Mormonism for a moment, a religion you likely believe is false or a cult. Look at the foundation myths of Mormonism and its rapid growth and ask yourself how this is any different from the foundation and expansion of Christianity.
I can fully understand hating the Jesus that you have described but will you take a moment to tell me what you think of the historical Jesus that many history scholars say did exist. The Jesus that I have researched historically is the one that keeps me from doing as you have done and renouncing my Faith as well. I have found enough evidence in historical writings that make me believe in him. Unless those writings have been compromised and tainted as well. What are your thoughts?
At the end of the day, every person must look at the extant evidence and decide accordingly. For me personally, I do not find the evidence persuasive. And even if I did, I doubt I would worship the God of the Bible. I find the God of the Bible to be reprehensible, a violent, genocidal deity undeserving of my fealty.
I hope I have adequately answered your questions.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Yesterday, a Fundamentalist Baptist man named Richard sent me the following email. My response is indented and italicized. All spelling and grammar in the original.
Hello Bruce. You might guess by my email moniker [saintnow] that this one’s going to be a doozy.
I make no judgments based on a person’s email address. I judge people based on what they say and do.
I have read a lot of your pages,
How many, exactly? Remember, I have access to the site server logs. Based on your email address, I know exactly how many pages you have read. Are you sure you want to go with “a lot of your pages?” Out of 4,000+ pages, Richard, how many did you actually read?
so I have an idea of what things will trigger what kind of reaction/response you might have.
If this is so, then why bother to contact me?
First, I want to say I appreciated your commentary about the IFB movement and the rise and fall of Emmanuel Baptist Church; which article finally triggered enough from me to offer my two cents.
Thank you.
I currently attend an IFB church. I’m wondering about it’s rising and likely future fall which I can almost prophecy is coming; following in the patter of the ministry of “the Doc”. I know the people at the church well and I see the trends which I believe will eventually bring the same results as befell Emmanuel. Your commentaries are very much in line with my observations about the faults and weaknesses…..achilles heels….within IFB circles.
The IFB church movement is a dangerous cult. There’s no such thing as a “good” IFB church. IFB beliefs cause psychological harm, and, at times, physical harm. My advice to people attending IFB churches is always the same: RUN!
It is probably impossible for me to convince you to change your mind as you have spent a lifetime arriving at your stance, and you will never convince me that your rejection of Jesus Christ could possibly be a valid decision for me.
You can certainly try to convince me to change my mind about God/Jesus/Christianity/Bible. All I ask is that you provide empirical evidence for your claims. Not bald assertions. Not subjective personal testimonies. Not Bible quotations. Actual verifiable objective evidence. So far, no Christian has provided me with sufficient evidence to warrant me changing my mind.
I am more than happy to look at your “evidence,” Richard. How about you look at mine? Let’s start with your belief that the Bible is inerrant and infallible. Better yet, have you read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books?
As the young lady at Columbine who looked her killer in the eye and answered yes when at gunpoint she was asked if she believes in Jesus Christ before she was shot and killed, I too will gladly accept the honor of suffering for my Savior.
These words are meaningless. No one “knows” what they will do when in such moments. For the record, I think Cassie Bernall’s martyrdom story is largely a myth (as are many Evangelical testimonies).
Multiple reliable sources, including eyewitnesses who were with Bernall when she was shot, the teen who initially reported that she had been the one asked about belief in God, an audio recording and the FBI, determined within months of the massacre that Bernall was never asked the question at all.
Craig Scott, a student who was in the library, where Bernall and 11 others (including the two killers) died — and the brother of Rachel Scott, the first victim killed in the incident during the massacre, told investigators that he had heard one of the shooters ask a victim whether or not they believed in God during the shooting, and the female victim answered, “yes.” Scott, hiding under a table at the time, did not see the exchange, but told investigators the voice was Bernall’s. However, months later when Scott visited the library with investigators, he identified the wrong location for Bernall, pointing instead to where survivor Valeen Schnurr had been hiding.
Schnurr lay on the floor, injured. When one of the shooters, Dylan Klebold approached her, she said, “Oh, my God, oh, my God, don’t let me die.” Klebold asked her if she believed in God. She said she did, and when he asked why, she responded, “Because I believe and my parents brought me up that way.” Klebold did not shoot her again.
In addition, Columbine student Emily Wyant, who was hiding beneath a table next to Bernall, told investigators that Eric Harris had shot her without asking her any questions at all. He merely knocked on the table twice and said, “Peekaboo.” Another student hiding in the same location confirmed Wyant’s account. Wyant told Bernall’s parents that their daughter had not spoken to either killer prior to the publication of “She Said ‘Yes’,” written by Misty Bernall.
Investigators were aware that Bernall had not spoken with the killers early in the investigation, and even had an audio recording of what actually happened, courtesy of an art teacher.
You can proudly say that you spent your life learning to believe or disbelieve or however you want to call your philosophy and you too will proudly stand at gunpoint and insist there is no God before biting the bullet.
I am a man who lives by his convictions and hopes to die by them. There’s no God, Satan, Heaven, or Hell, so I have no fear over what awaits me. I am on the short side of life, with a few years, at best, to live. Instead of worrying about my nonexistent “soul,” I choose to focus on the here-and-now; on my beautiful wife; on my six adult children and their spouses; on my thirteen awesome grandchildren; on the work I do through this blog; on good food; on just enjoying the moments before me.
You know what the Bible says about that, so I’ll spare you the irritation of repeating it.
Why should I care about what an ancient religious text says about anything? The Bible has no authority, power, or control over me. The Bible is just words on pages.
Now, in hope that we both understand we will not persuade the other for or against Jesus Christ, I don’t know what else to say. I do hope to get a personal response from you, but I don’t expect it as it seems you have quite an enterprise to manage now.
Consider yourself “responded to.” 🙂
Congratulations for the success of your new ministry since denouncing the Word of God.
Thank you, even though you meant your comment sarcastically. I have a far greater reach today than I ever did as an Evangelical pastor. Day by day I continue to win souls, baptizing them in the name of reason, skepticism, and common sense. I implore you, Richard, to join the one true church. Membership is free, no tithing required. Don’t waste your life worshipping a God who does not exist; a Jesus who is dead; and a book that has little to offer twenty-first-century humans. Freedom awaits outside of the box. (Please see The Danger of Being in a Box and Why it Makes Sense When You Are In It and What I Found When I Left the Box.)
Richard later left a comment that said:
……..To the atheist (nothing personal, Bruce) So you insist God is a myth,
I am an agnostic atheist. Look it up. I think the extant deities created by humans, including Jehovah, Allah, and the triune God of Christianity, are myths. There may be a creator that has not yet made itself known to us, so I remain agnostic on the God question.
Are you not an atheist too, rejecting as myths all deities but yours?
and you are at least temporarily real I guess.
I am as real as you are, and I will be as dead as you will be someday. There’s no evidence that I know of that proves humans live after they die. Once we die, Richard, we stay dead. Even Jesus remains buried somewhere on a Judean hillside. Do you have evidence that suggests otherwise?
You insist there is no Hell to be saved from, no God to fear, no Savior to save you.
Yep, yep, and yep. Why do you continue to believe things for which you have no evidence?
Such a stance is nothing new, did it really take all that long to get there?
I have no idea what you are asking here. It took me fifty years to reach where I am today because I was deeply indoctrinated. Breaking free from Evangelical indoctrination and conditioning took time. Better late than never, even for you, Richard.
I guess there is no way out for you.
Way out? From what. You will find the following advice on my About Page:
“You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.”
I live by this advice each and every day.
And I guess it’s not a problem for you, so why should it be a problem for anybody else?
I have no idea what you are asking here.
Saved by Reason,
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Truly, April Fool’s Day is a fitting holiday for all the Communistic, Rock-n-Rolling, Satanic, immoral, child-murdering, feminist, ATHEISTS in the world. There’s not a bigger bunch of fools on the planet.
….
When the truth is revealed, there’s no such thing as an atheist. There are only ingrates who refuse to acknowledge the goodness and omnipotent power of God. Romans 1:20 confirms that there is no such thing as an atheist. All the proof anyone needs of God is found right outside your front door, which is why on Judgment Day all professed atheists will be without excuse. I assure you that there are no atheists in Hell.
Do you know where most atheists are from? They come out of heathen State universities. Most young people profess to be homosexuals in a heathen university, which is where they are indoctrinated with that garbage. Most people decide to become atheist [sic] in some heathen school. Colossians 2:4 and 18, “And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. … Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.” The Scriptures warn about taking unsound advice from unsaved people.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. My family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1972 and this is where I grew up. My parents were not very religious, just enough to not go to hell. We attended a Presbyterian church sporadically through my teenage years. When I was 12, I went to a YMCA summer camp. Most of the counselors were Bible college students. One night, around a fire with other campers, I heard the gospel for the first time that I remember. It included, of course, if I didn’t believe and pray the sinner’s prayer, I would go to hell. Well, what 12-year-old wants to go to hell? So I prayed the prayer, was given a Bible, and was told to read it every day. My Presbyterian parents were wary of my newfound zeal for God and the Bible. I was in and out of church through high school and college. Sometimes I would be zealous about my faith, and sometimes not.
After college, I got a job as an assistant manager at a restaurant in 1993. Most of the servers and several of the kitchen staff were Bible school students. This restaurant did not serve alcohol, so it attracted more Christians than other places. Most of these were from the charismatic/word of faith crowd. At first, I thought they were nuts! But they grew on me after a while. I started going to a large church of this flavor, because of a girl, of course. I played trumpet in the orchestra and was really enjoying it. Eventually, I married the girl that I followed to church and wound up going to a Bible school in the Tulsa area. After graduating, I went to work for the church/ministry that was associated with the Bible school. It wasn’t perfect, but I did enjoy my time there.
A few years later, in 1999, we moved to Memphis “at the leading of the Lord” and hooked up with a similar church here. I was also doing some teaching in churches around Memphis and the surrounding area. We wound up leaving that church and helping someone else start a church in the area. I was the associate pastor and youth pastor — volunteer, of course. Ugh. I also continued to be invited to other churches to speak and was really enjoying it. Until I wasn’t. We started seeing things in many churches that were troubling so we quit going to church for a while. We began meeting other Christians in homes and people would take turns teaching. This was around 2011. After one of these Bible studies, a couple asked me about tithing. We were taught that 10% of your income goes to the church. They had very little money at the time and were feeling bad that they couldn’t tithe. I asked them to study the topic and I did the same. So, I did an in-depth study on tithing. And guess what? What I’d been taught, with limited scripture often taken out of context, isn’t what the Bible says about tithing! I was like, well shit. If I’m wrong about that, what else am I wrong about? Around this time, I started getting interested in secular Buddhism, so my cover-to-cover Bible study was put off for a couple of years.
Around 2014, I started a 2-year, in-depth study of the Bible, the history of the Bible, and the history of the church. Probably my first big revelation was that I stopped believing in hell. Then I pretty much stopped believing in heaven. Then I stopped believing in creationism/Adam and Eve. And it all starts to crumble at that point. No Adam and Eve, no original sin, no need for a savior, etc. Then learning about how the Bible was put together, well shit, it was just a bunch of men who put it together. So much didn’t fit and didn’t make sense anymore. Like many have said, the Bible made me an atheist. Also, just looking at things like prayer and my rate of “answered” prayers. I could have prayed to my cat and gotten the same results! It was about 50/50. Except in one area where I was 100%. Everyone I’ve prayed for to live, who had a terminal, untreatable condition, all died of that condition or complications related to it. Every single one. As I got further away from religion, I started to realize how far away I had gotten from critical thinking. It’s sometimes hard to look back and realize that I believed in the creation story, Noah’s flood, talking animals, demons, angels, etc. But when a person is told that these things are true from a young age, by people they love and trust, you just believe them.
My wife is still a very devout Christian, maybe more so than ever, so that’s been interesting to navigate. She knows my beliefs have changed a lot, but not the full extent of my atheism. Only a couple of people do. All of my family and wife’s family are believers. Most of my friends are believers. I’m not ready yet to come out fully. I’m not sure that I will to everyone.
I’ve noticed some interesting things since leaving my faith. The first thing that comes to mind is that nothing happened. My cats didn’t die, my car didn’t break down, my life didn’t fall apart, etc. In fact, life has gotten better since I left my faith! I’m mentally and emotionally much healthier. I went through a long depression as a believer. I prayed, I read my Bible, I made confessions, I had others pray for me . . . and it just got worse. The group of Christians I had been around were very anti-medication for this kind of thing. It got bad enough I finally went to a good psychiatrist who put me on medication that worked wonderfully! I stopped praying and started learning about how the brain works, how thought patterns are formed, how my diet affects my moods. I started meditating. These things helped me SO much more than prayer and the Bible.
Another thing that I’ve noticed is that I’m much less judgmental and definitely more open-minded. I’m just a better human. I don’t think I was ever a super judgmental asshole. But, religion certainly tainted my worldview. Everything from politics to atheism to the LGBTQ+ community to people of other faiths to music to what I read and watch on tv, and so on. I like who I am now! I never felt like I could like myself as a Christian because we are nothing without Jesus and all that shit.
So, yeah, I am enjoying life much more as an atheist. It’s so nice to not have set in stone, dogmatic beliefs. At first, it was really uncomfortable to not have those solid beliefs. But now I’m used to it and it’s very freeing. As a Christian, I always heard that we were free in Jesus. It is the “sinners” that are bound. Now I see that it is just the opposite. Religion binds you up, letting go of that shit is really what sets you free.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
I lied, sort of, depending on which rabbi you ask.
Almost all agree that Judaism is passed on through the female biological line. That sounds straightforward enough, but if your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother was Jewish but nobody in any part of your family has practiced the religion or participated in any of its cultures….one rabbi might say, “You’re as Jewish as Theodor Herzl,” while another might tell you you’re as goyish as Pat or Debbie Boone.
I know: I have had exactly such an experience. As I was preparing to marry a Jewish woman of Latin American heritage, I consulted with rabbis and took classes. Since I no longer considered myself a part of the Roman Catholic church in which I’d grown up or with the Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in which I later affiliated myself, but I did not yet identify as atheist or non-religious, I was willing to participate in my wife-to-be’s religion and help raise the children we planned to have in it.
The Latin American Jewish community in which she was raised, mostly in the Miami area, was more conservative, politically and socially, than the non-Hasidic Ashkenazic Jews in whose proximity I was raised and have lived much of my life. When she went to college, she “fell away” from the religion but had returned to it, if in a more mystical and ritualistic iteration, by the time she met me. So, while she didn’t want to submit to the more severe sartorial and other regulations of some sects, she felt that prayer—in Hebrew—and other aspects of the religion were important to her life.
I would realize, much later, long after our marriage ended, that for her, her faith and “spirituality” was a way of keeping her inner torment– what some would call “demons” — at bay. She seemed to think that her faith and intense prayer were a way to deal with her extreme mood swings, some of which resulted in physical attacks on me she could not remember, or so she claimed, the following day. (Do you need more proof that prayer cannot substitute for medication and therapy?) Also, I came to understand –because I would come to the same knowledge about myself—that her religiosity was a defense (or, at least, she tried to use it as such) against desires that were not approved by her family and community.
In short, both of us were trying to deal with—or not deal with—the fact that we weren’t entirely heterosexual. Oh, and in my case, that I wasn’t the man I presented myself to be, or any kind of man at all. It would have been difficult enough for her family to approve of someone who wasn’t a mensch—which, to them, meant what some would condescendingly call a “nice Jewish boy.”
So, while I told her family and the rabbis that I am Jewish, I knew well that in the eyes of some, I wasn’t truly one of them, and never could be. And, interestingly, one of the rabbis we consulted tried to discourage me from living as a Jew. For one thing, he saw that I wanted to do so at least in part for the sake of marriage and the approval of her family. He pointed out the ostracism, persecution and worse Jewish people have faced throughout history and even warned me that no matter how fastidiously I followed the ways of his religion or how well I learned Hebrew, some “in the community” wouldn’t quite accept me.
I would later learn that he wasn’t the only rabbi who tried to dissuade people from converting to, or resuming, Judaism. So, when I heard the query, “Are you Jewish?” many years later from a young bearded man in front at a sidewalk table near Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, I was taken aback. Unlike Christianity, Judaism doesn’t have a tradition of evangelism. At least, they haven’t tried to bring non-Jews into the fold. But that young man was part of the only Jewish community that, to my knowledge, tries to spread its words and ways –and only to other, mainly secular, Jews: the Lubavitchers, who comprise much of the Orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn, Montreal, and a few other cities.
I can’t help but wonder whether that young man was more successful in his “evangelism” efforts than I was in mine as an Evangelical Christian. Some would argue that I didn’t really “have the Holy Spirit within” me because I—at least to the best of my knowledge—never “brought” anybody “to Jesus.” Likewise, I can imagine that young man chastised for his lack of faith or commitment or something for not bringing “lost” Jewish people “home.”
Of course, today, as an atheist, I don’t care whether someone thinks I am, or ever was, Jewish, Christian or of any other religion. I think my ex and her family realized that I was only “going through the motions” and would be no more Jewish than I was a man. I sometimes wonder, though, what sort of discussion or argument I could have had with that young man had I told him that I am Jewish, or had I immersed myself in the religion enough to help raise the children my ex and I planned but never had.
(In case you’re wondering: My ex remarried. Her husband was raised in a conservative Jewish community and, within five years, they would have four children whom they would raise in the religion and send to yeshivas. I also heard, from mutual friends, that they were considering a move to Israel. Oh, and I’ve gone through a long process of affirming my identity as a woman.)
Now, if anyone were to ask me whether I’m a Christian, Catholic, or Jewish, the answer to the first two would be an emphatic “no.” As for the question of my Jewishness, that would depend on how much time or energy I have for a discussion or argument. After all, someone I knew in my youth told me and the rabbi of the man she married that she was a “Jewish atheist.” The rabbi said that was entirely plausible and made no effort to convince her otherwise. I could tell that rabbi the same thing: I, like her, have Jewish heritage on my mother’s side of the family (though my relatives converted to Catholicism) but don’t believe in any “supreme” or “higher” “being.”
In the years since then, I’ve had co-workers, and have friends and friendly acquaintances, who are Muslims. Interestingly, though Islam is a proselytizing religion, none has tried to “witness” (if you’ll pardon a Christian term) to me, and most Islamic states don’t encourage proselytizing. Oh, and contrary to what some religious conservatives and grandstanding politicians would have their constituents believe, neither I nor any other atheist I know makes any effort to recruit (or, if you like, proselytize) others to our way of thinking. I guess in that sense, at least, I am as Jewish as I am an atheist!
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
